Amidst the flux of the liberal international order, Japan’s public diplomacy, which relies solely on its cultural uniqueness, is inadequate. Professor Yasushi Watanabe of Keio University proposes new principles for an age where the diplomatic sphere is expanding from negotiation tactics to agenda setting and norm setting. In this presentation, Professor Watanabe will review the trajectory of Japan’s public diplomacy, its challenges and possibilities, with particular attention to the Tokyo 2020 Games.

This event will take place at the University of Oxford and has been organised in conjunction with the Oxford Department of International Development. For more details please visit the University’s event page.

About the contributors

Professor Yasushi Watanabe
Professor Yasushi Watanabe is Professor of Public Diplomacy at the Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University. Before joining Keio University, he was awarded a PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University and undertook post-doctoral research at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. He was previously a Fellow at Downing College, University of Cambridge in 2007, a Visiting Professor at Sciences-Po in 2013, a Japan Scholar at the Wilson Center, and Visiting Scholars at Peking University and College of Europe in 2018. Yasushi serves on the Advisory Panel at the Japan Foundation, as a programme director of the International House of Japan, and a co-chair of the Japan Advisory Council of the Salzburg Global Seminar. His books include the co-edited volume Soft Power Superpowers: Cultural and National Assets of Japan and the United States (2008) and the edited volume Handbook of Cultural Security (2018). In 2005 he was awarded the prestigious Japan Academy Medal, which is the highest national prize awarded to mid-career academics.

Professor Corneliu Bjola
Professor Corneliu Bjola is Associate Professor of Diplomatic Studies at the University of Oxford. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto and has previously taught at McMaster University and the University of Toronto. He was a research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Defense Force Academy and China Foreign Affairs University. His research interests relate to the impact of digital technology on the conduct of diplomacy with a focus on strategic communication and digital influence as well as on theories and methods for countering disinformation and propaganda. He has authored or edited five books, including the co-edited volumes on Countering Online Propaganda and Extremism: The Dark Side of Digital Diplomacy (forthcoming), and Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (2015). He is co-editor of the book series on New Diplomatic Studies and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Diplomacy and Foreign Policy.